C2 THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2021
New ‘shared prosperity’ initiative
Port of Portland looking
at alternative uses or
sale of major assets
BY JEFF MANNING
The Oregonian
T
he Port of Portland is consider-
ing a major overhaul that could
include the sale or repurposing
some of its riverfront terminals, one of
its smaller airports and other import-
ant holdings.
“Just about everything is on the ta-
ble,” said Curtis Robinhold, the port’s
executive director.
The restructuring is part of sweep-
ing philosophical shift away from fa-
cilitating trade for powerful business
interests to a “shared prosperity initia-
tive” intended to spread the wealth to
people of color, the poor and the mar-
ginalized. In some cases, that could
mean selling off profitable operations
in order to pursue these new, broader
aims, which are taking root amid a re-
surgent civil rights movement.
“The port was created in 1891 to
benefit exporters of wood and grain
– white men who owned businesses,”
Robinhold said. “While the port has
evolved in a number of ways over the
last years, for most of our existence,
powerful business interests continued
to benefit from our work. Now we
need to focus on how we bring eco-
nomic prosperity to the people who
were left behind.”
It’s an unlikely time for the Port to
launch a risky new initiative. It has
been hammered by the dramatic de-
cline of air travel since the arrival of
the coronavirus. The Port’s crown
jewel, Portland International Airport,
saw passenger volume drop 70% in
2020.
For an organization that gets 80% of
its revenue from its large airport, that’s
made for a difficult year. The port has
downsized from 800 to 740 employed
and is in the process of eliminating an-
other 40 positions, Robinhold said.
What’s more, some of those the Port
served all those years won’t take kindly
to the port’s dramatic shift.
By the port’s own reckoning, the
Portland harbor provides nearly
30,000 jobs with an average annual
salary of $51,000. While the city’s ma-
rine shipping business has shrunk
T
Terminal
Te
4 of the Port
of Portland on Feb. 11.
o
Dave Killen/The Oregonian
enormously over the last 30 years, it
still plays a significant role in the re-
gional economy.
“The Port of Portland supports
many jobs, local businesses, and the
trade and transportation sectors,” said
Jim McKenna, president and CEO
of the Pacific Maritime Association,
which represents shipping companies
in labor negotiations. “These termi-
nals have and will continue to drive
economic growth and play an import-
ant role on the West Coast. It could
have a significant impact on the re-
gional economy to lose them.”
Others say it’s far past time for the
port to make a clean break from its
past in hopes the new prosperity ini-
tiative will help overcome the state’s
racist legacy. Michael Alexander, a
port commissioner and former head
of the Urban League of Portland, notes
that the port was created at a time
when laws were still on the books that
prohibited Blacks from settling in Or-
egon.
“My takeaway is not that it will de-
termine what the port does, but it will
drive how the port does it,” he said. “It
is a matter of what questions are asked.
What is the impact? What is the bene-
fit? Who benefits?”
Taking stock
The port will begin evaluating
all its assets this week to determine
which it will keep and which it will
sell or repurpose. Proceeds from any
asset disposal will advance the port’s
new shared prosperity agenda, ac-
cording to port documents.
Robinhold insists that all of the
port’s assets will be analyzed, though
he concedes that there is no scenario
in which the port disposes of PDX.
Similarly, Terminal 6, the busy con-
tainer dock on Hayden Island, is
likely to remain with the port.
Others assets may be on the block
as early as next year.
Terminal 2, the oldest of the Port’s
marine terminals, sits unused and
empty. The Portland Diamond Proj-
ect, a group that nurtured longshot
hopes to build a Major League Base-
ball stadium on the 53-acre site, has
let its development agreement with
the port lapse.
The riverfront property is near the
ritzy condo towers of the Pearl Dis-
trict. But the port has no intention of
selling it to a residential developer,
Robinhold said. Among the early
ideas for the site: A new workforce
training center operated in conjunc-
tion with local trade unions or a mar-
keting center for cross-laminated
timber.
The Troutdale Airport’s days as
a Port of Portland asset may also
be numbered. Tucked between the
Sandy River and Northeast Marine
Drive, the small airport 13 miles east
of PDX creates few jobs and loses
$500,000 to $1 million a year.
Robinhold also lists West Hayden
Island on the likely for-sale list. The
lush, undeveloped 800 acres near the
confluence of the Willamette and
Columbia rivers is prized by environ-
mentalists and birders.
“An industrial development on
that site is unlikely,” Robinhold said.
“Several stakeholders have expressed
an interest in making it green space,
including Bob Sallinger and the Port-
land Audubon Society. (Sallinger is
the society’s director.) I think they
make strong arguments.”
Terminals 4 and 5, the Willamette
River berths in North Portland, pose
a more delicate issue. The terminals
handle grain, potash and other bulk
materials. Cargo ships also deliver
new Toyotas to the site for distribu-
tion to American dealerships.
“T4 and T5 do well financially for
the Port,” Robinhold said, “but their
benefit to the community is pretty
limited.”
Getting its own house in order
The port considers its own opera-
tions subject to the shared prosperity
goals it is now establishing. To that
end, in July the port will implement
a mandatory minimum $15-an-hour
wage for about 900 low-paid service
workers at Portland International.
The port will require companies
doing business at the airport to pay a
new $15-an-hour minimum wage by
July and then $16.55 per hour next
January. Baggage handlers, security
officers, wheelchair agents, airplane
and terminal cleaners, many of them
people of color, will get raises as a re-
sult of the higher minimum.
But the plan has critics, including
one who actually serves on the port
commission.
Meg Niemi, head of the Service
Employees International Union Local
49, notes that many airport workers
already earn $15 an hour. SEIU was
involved in the fight over compensa-
tion for airport workers, and Niemi
said PDX lags far behind most other
major West Coast airports on wages.
“We could have and should have
done much more,” Niemi said.
Eleven miles east of PDX is
Gresham Vista, an enormous indus-
trial park, where the port is also try-
ing to convert its lofty verbiage on di-
versity into action.
In November, the port reached
agreement with prominent local real
estate developer Greg Specht and Co-
las Development Group, a fast-grow-
ing, minority-owned Portland
builder, to develop 48 acres at the site.
The port has made it clear it
doesn’t want another warehouse that
offers relatively few jobs or an Ama-
zon building, where jobs are numer-
ous but the salaries are relatively low.
The port will consider tenants
based on their commitment to offer
well-paying jobs (equal to or greater
than the state average), competitive
benefits, upward mobility, and a com-
mitment to diversity and inclusion
goals.
Those conditions will make finding
a tenant more difficult. But that’s OK
with Andrew Colas, the second-gen-
eration CEO of Colas Development.
The emphasis on quality jobs for the
people who really need them is some-
thing he said he can get behind.
“For us as a company, we really
embrace this policy shift,” said Colas,
who is Black. “The biggest barrier for
people of color is that they haven’t got
that opportunity.”
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